MAP16: The Omen (The Plutonia Experiment)

MAP16: The Omen is the sixteenth map of The Plutonia Experiment. It was designed by Milo Casali and uses the music track "Untitled" from Doom.

Essentials
There are three skull keys in this map. The red and blue keys can be obtained at any time, while the yellow key is behind a door requiring the blue key.

Blue key
As the level starts, go through the steps and drop off the right (east) side to find a shotgun, super shotgun, backpack and two boxes of shotgun shells. Go west from here until you enter a nukage pool (which is not harmful) and collect the BFG9000 in the north-west corner if you need it, then head south towards a metal lift which is moving up and down. Once the lift descends, step over it to some imps and spectres who are guarding the blue skull key, which is sitting under a pavilion in the middle of this area.

Arm yourself before stepping under the pavilion, as doing so will allow monsters to teleport in around you. The moving lift can block your escape, so circle the enemies and destroy them with heavy weapons.
 * I'm Too Young To Die (ITYTD) or Hey Not Too Rough (HNTR) skill levels: eight revenants.
 * Hurt Me Plenty (HMP): 16 revenants.
 * Ultra-Violence (UV) or Nightmare (NM): 16 revenants and four mancubi.

Red key
Step on the mentioned lift and ride it up to a ledge that had shotgun guys and revenants on it. Head west then north through a tunnel of health bonuses, then turn left to see the red skull key at the end of a walkway along with a plasma gun. There are chaingunners, cacodemons and arachnotrons in this area that should be killed before you approach the key, as doing so will trigger another teleport ambush.
 * ITYTD or HNTR: four revenants at the walkway entrance.
 * HMP: four revenants at the walkway's entrance and two revenants near the key.
 * UV or NM: four revenants at the walkway's entrance, and four revenants near the key. Two new arachnotrons teleport onto the pedestals where the first pair of arachnotrons stood.

Remaining on the walkway is not advised as it offers no cover from the revenants. You should fight your way back to the center area using the plasma gun or BFG9000.

Yellow key and exit
Return to the starting area and head east past the curved steps to a blue key door. Open it and kill four or six spectres that head towards you before going outside; on UV or NM, watch out for two revenants that are waiting on either side of the doorway to ambush you. Head east down some steps to the yellow key but arm yourself before picking it up, as an arch-vile will teleport behind you; this area offers no cover so kill it as quickly as possible.

Return to the blue key pavilion; on HMP or higher, a second arch-vile will have teleported to this area so destroy it along with any monsters it has resurrected. Go to the south-east corner and open the yellow key door here to find a megaarmor, but be ready to face a large number of zombies - 24 on ITYTD and HNTR, 36 on HMP, or 49 on UV and NM. A single BFG blast should kill most of the monsters if you have cells remaining, then you can finish off any survivors with other weapons.

The final area has lots of moving platforms, but step on the one in the south-west corner and ride it up to a pair of red skull bars that you can open to reach a gargoyle switch. Press the switch to lower a red teleporter in the middle of the nukage and step into it, then walk into the exit teleporter in front of you. Do not fall into the nukage in the exit room as it is inescapable (see Bugs).

Secrets
There are no official secrets in this level.

Bugs
The exit room is surrounded by an inescapable nukage pit (sectors 95 and 96). However, this pit has not been assigned any damaging floor effects, and the linedefs surrounding the pit are not flagged as impassable, so if the player falls in, they will be permanently stuck unless they load from an earlier save or use cheat codes.

Speedrunning
As this level does not contain official secrets, the NM 100S category is redundant.

Routes and tricks
It is possible to exit the map without the red key, as one of the moving pillars rises high enough for you to reach the teleporter to the exit.

Current Compet-n records
The Compet-n records for the map are:

The data was last verified in its entirety on July 6, 2020.

Current DSDA records
The records for the map at the Doom Speed Demo Archive are:

The data was last verified in its entirety on July 24, 2023.

Player spawns
This level contains eight spawn points:
 * 1) facing south-east. (thing 187)
 * 2) facing north-west. (thing 188)
 * 3) facing west. (thing 189)
 * 4) facing west. (thing 190)
 * 5) facing north. (thing 191)
 * 6) facing north. (thing 192)
 * 7) facing west. (thing 193)
 * 8) facing south-east. (thing 194)

Things
This level contains the following numbers of things per skill level: